Floor sweepers are well-known devices capable of sweeping debris from the floor into the sweeper resulting in a cleaner floor. The floor debris, having been collected within the sweeper, can then be disposed of from this convenient single location.
Floor sweepers often have brushes used to collect the debris from the floor. The brushes may be electrically powered, via connection to an outlet or by batteries. The brushes may also be rotated manually by virtue of the sweeper being pushed across the floor by an operator.
Battery powered sweepers are well-known products, with many examples available for the consumer market, and a smaller number of sweepers available for the commercial market. However, all of the available consumer and commercial products have performance limitations.
For example, the available sweepers all lack the ability to effectively pick up debris on both hard floors as well as carpeted floors. Those skilled in the art know that debris collection on carpeted floors is relatively easy, but the prior art sweepers are plagued by a number of problems when used on hard floors.
On hard floors, the prior art sweepers disadvantageously blow and scatter light debris forward, behind and/or to the sides and away from the sweeper. Additionally, these sweepers cannot pick up small and/or light debris, such as small amounts of fine sand and/or debris such as “hole punch dots” and similar debris.
In view of the disadvantages of the prior art designs, a sweeper that does not blow debris away from the sweeper and that is capable of picking up small and light debris on any surface is required.